CD-Text is an extension of the audio
CD standard that allows you to store additional information on
an audio CD, such as album name, album artist and track info.
Many audio players like Winamp and RealPlayer can read CD-Text
but Windows Media Player has never supported it. Until now, because
the WMPCDText plug-in allows Windows Media
Player to read CD-Text.

WMPCDText provides an option to automatically read
CD-Text from unrecognized audio CDs. Alternatively, you can right-click on a CD
track in Windows Media Player's Now Playing mode while a CD is
playing, and select Read CD-Text (see screenshot below).

WMPCDText especially comes in handy when using
Windows Media Player for playing home-made audio CDs. Before
WMPCDText, you would have to insert all the track information of
such a CD manually into Windows Media Player. Now, just make
sure that the CD-Text information is burned onto the CD, play
the burned CD with Windows Media Player, and WMPCDText will
automatically read the track information from the CD itself and
insert it into the Media Library.

The plug-in is written for Windows Media
Player 11 and higher. For reading CD-Text on Windows XP and
Windows Server 2003, administrator rights
are required. However, you can use
Nero BurnRights to make reading CD-Text possible without administrator rights
too.

Comments, questions, problems, bug reports
etc. can be posted in the
WMPCDText thread
at the Hydrogenaudio Forums.

Before clicking "Read CD-Text"...

... after clicking "Read CD-Text". WMPCDText has read the
track information from the CD.

Fixed: crash when opening Windows Media Player 12 with a
very long command line (such as when Windows Media Player is
opened by clicking on an MP3 hyperlink in Internet Explorer).

Fixed: WMPCDText always tried to show its settings window
on the first Windows Media Player run after install, even when
Windows Media Player was running invisibly in the background
(such as is the case with Windows Media Center). This also
caused 'unauthorized window' errors in the event log while
using a Windows Media Center Extender.

Dropped support for Windows Media Player 10.

Preliminary support for Windows Media Player 12 on Windows
8.

Version 1.2 (July 25, 2009)

Fully
compatible with Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7:

The "Read
CD-Text" menu item is shown in the Play List pane on the right, both
in Library and Now Playing mode.

Removed the
compatibility warning that was displayed on the first Windows Media Player launch after
installing WMPCDText.